Electronic baseball card

Abstract

A small hand-held electronic device that contains all of the normally interesting statistics for a baseball player or team. The user interface comprises a visual display and a keyboard having alphabet keys, an ENTER key, cursor keys for scrolling, and statistic keys for selecting the statistic of interesting. The system electronics includes a microprocessor and a large solid state non-volatile memory array containing the detailed statistical records of hundreds of baseball players. The user turns on the device and selects a player or team by entering two or three characters of the name via the alphabet keys. A series of choices are displayed on the screen and the user scrolls through the list using the cursor keys (up and down). When the desired player or team is displayed, the user presses the appropriate statistic key. The device displays the cumulative statistics; previous year statistics are displayed by the use of the cursor keys. A new statistic may be obtained by pressing the key corresponding to that statistic while a new player or team may be selected by depressing the first two or three letters of the name and beginning the process anew.

We claim: 
     
       1. A hand-held portable electronic apparatus for providing a user with baseball information on demand, comprising: a keyboard having a set of alphabet keys, an ENTER key, at least one cursor key, and a plurality of statistic keys;   means for storing a compressed database comprising historical and statistical data for major league baseball players and teams, said database including for each player a header record and cumulative and yearly statistical records;   a display device for providing a visual display to allow the user to view selected data; and   a programmed microcomputer having means responsive to a sequence of alphabet keys for creating a pointer to the closest header record,   means responsive to said ENTER key for causing the header information pointed to by said pointer to be displayed,   means responsive to said cursor keys and operable when said header information is being displayed for displaying neighboring header information,   means responsive to said statistic keys and operable when header information is being displayed for displaying a statistical record, and   means responsive to said cursor keys and operable when a statistic is being displayed for displaying the same statistic for additional years.     
     
     
       2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said means for storing comprises a removable module containing a solid state read only memory. 
     
     
       3. A hand-held portable electronic apparatus for providing a user with sports information on demand, comprising: a keyboard having a set of alphabet keys, an ENTER key, at least one cursor key, and a plurality of statistic keys;   means for storing a compressed database comprising historical and statistical data for major league players and teams, said database including for each player a header record and cumulative and yearly statistical records;   a display device for providing a visual display to allow the user to view selected data; and   a programmed microcomputer having means responsive to a sequence of alphabet keys for creating a pointer to the closest header record,   means responsive to said ENTER key for causing the header information pointed to by said pointer to be displayed,   means responsive to said cursor keys and operable when said header information is being displayed for displaying neighboring header information,   means responsive to said statistic keys and operable when header information is being displayed for displaying a statistical record, and   means responsive to said cursor keys and operable when a statistic is being displayed for displaying the same statistic for additional years.     
     
     
       4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said means for storing comprises a removable module containing a solid-state read-only memory.